Petra spanks reporters, says interview is not ‘u-turn’
(HARAKAHDAILY) – Self-exiled blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin, in the news again recently over an interview with him broadcast by TV3 purportedly making a ‘u-turn’ of his “allegations” of the prime minister’s involvement in murder, has been taking pains to explain that he had been consistent all along.
In an interview with UMNO-owned New Straits Times, Petra again dismissed the notion that he had withdrawn his allegations, saying he had merely issued a statutory declaration so that authorities would seriously investigate the claim that Najib Razak and his wife Rosmah Mansor had been involved in the murder of Mongolian negotiator, Altantuya Shariibuu, in 2006.
“What I said was that an informer had informed me about the matter,” Petra told the paper, and asked: “By the way, have you read my SD yet? I would suspect not, as many who comment do so without reading it,” he added.
Saying he was in no mood to clarify “distortions” by the mainstream media, the 61-year old who runs the Malaysia Today website said it was time now for him to get back at those who lied about him.
“Their job is to whack me and that is what they did. Now, after three years of getting whacked, I am whacking back. Is this not my right?” he asked.
Interview two months old
Petra also said the TV3 interview, aired over the last two days on its prime news bulletin, was recorded two months ago, denying accusations that it was done to help Barisan Nasional’s campaign in the Sarawak election.
“Two months ago there was no confirmation of the Sarawak elections. So when do I do the interview? After the Sarawak elections? Then, after the Sarawak elections, people will say why now, just before the 13th GE? So I wait until after the 13th GE and people will still ask, why now, just before a by-election?
“So when should I do this interview? After Malaysia has banned elections?” Petra asked in his trademark bluntness.
To a question on whether he could provide proofs of Najib’s involvement in Altantuya’s murder, Petra shot back by saying that past practice in Malaysian courts had shown that mere testimony was enough to convict a person on a serious charge.
“What do you mean by proof? Video recordings of them in towels in a hotel room?”, he said, in an apparent reference to the pornographic clip released by several UMNO leaders implicating Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim in a sex scandal.
“Define ‘proof’. Anwar was convicted and sentenced to 15 years jail in 1999 based on testimony. Testimony is proof and that was good enough to sentence Anwar to 15 years jail. My testimony is even better. It is in the form of an SD,” said Petra, who spearheaded the Free Anwar Campaign to gather international pressure on the government to release Anwar from jail.
Najib’s khalwat affair
On claims that he had now ‘changed’ due to a desire to return to Malaysia, an angry Petra reminded the NST journalist of an incident in the 1990s in Port Dickson, where Najib was said to have been caught by Islamic enforcement officers for khalwat (close proximity with opposite sex) in a hotel, only to be let off without Syariah prosecution.
“Do you want to ask Najib this? Who cares about talks on the ground? If the government says I am welcome back in Malaysia and I tell the government to go to hell because I love it in the country of my birth, what then are you going to say?” said Petra, who was born in Surrey, UK.
Petra suggested that accusations against him were not new, saying he had also been accused of apostasy, “of going to church every Sunday and that my wife and I have left Islam to become Catholics”.
Meanwhile, to a set of questions by Singapore’s The Straits Times which included among others on the timing of the interview to coincide with the Sarawak polls and whether he was “neutralising” suspicions about Najib’s involvement in murder, Petra said it was silly to think that his interview and the pornographic clip aimed at Anwar would influence the outcome of the election.
“If you do, then you had better ask to be transferred to the food and wine desk because you still have a long way to go to understanding politics,” he replied to the paper’s Malaysian correspondent, Hazlin Hassan.
